Italian Mosaics: 300 - 1300

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By Joachim Poeschke ISBN 978-0-7892-0863-7 ∙ $135.00

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Italian Frescoes: The Early Renaissance, 1400–1470

By Steffi Roettgen ISBN 978-0-7892-0139-3 ∙ $135.00

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Italian Frescoes: The Flowering of the Renaissance 1470–1510

By Steffi Roettgen ISBN 978-0-7892-0221-5 ∙ $135.00

“The combination of Antonio Quattrone’s marvelous photographs and Steffi Roettgen’s brilliant text makes Italian Frescoes by far the finest book on the subject, and Signor Quattrone’s color photography captures the glorious qualities of this quintessentially Italian art form.” —Everett Fahy, John PopeHennessy Chairman, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Italian Frescoes: High Renaissance and Mannerism 1510–1600

By Julian Kliemann and Michael Rohlmann ISBN 978-0-7892-0831-6 ∙ $135.00

Italian Frescoes: The Baroque Era, 1600–1800

By Steffi Roettgen ISBN 978-0-7892-0936-8 ∙ $135.00

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300–1300

“Third in a series of gorgeous, lucidly written books, Frescoes admirably fills the information gap between chatty guidebooks and dry scholarship. Splendid photos, details, and site plans cover 20 major cycles of religious and secular ‘wall painting,’ as the ­authors rightly call frescoes by Michelangelo, Raphael, Veronese, Annibale Carracci et al.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

Italian Mosaics

Italian Frescoes: The Age of Giotto, 1280–1400

Poeschke

Italian Mosaics 300–1300

Joachim Poeschke

Art History

Italian Mosaics 300–1300

By Joachim Poeschke

A

companion to Abbeville’s highly praised Italian Frescoes ­series, this magnificently illustrated volume presents the most important mosaic cycles created in Italy between AD 300 and 1300. In these centuries, mosaics—executed principally on walls and vaults— were the most important medium for monumental religious art, just as frescoes would be in the Renaissance. In fact, the mosaics that adorn the fourth- to sixth-century churches, baptisteries, and mausoleums of Rome, Ravenna, and to a lesser extent Naples and Milan are among the first ­examples of Christian pictorial art on a monumental scale.

These early works were still indebted to classical conventions, but as the Middle Ages progressed, Italian mosaics came to more clearly reflect a Christian, transcendentalist worldview. Usually their style also displayed a strong Byzantine influence; indeed, some of them were actually carried out by Byzantine craftsmen. Although most of the artists who designed these beautiful mosaics remain anonymous, we do know the names of some of those who contributed to the final flowering of the art in the thirteenth century—including Cimabue, Cavallini, and Giotto, the most celebrated painters of the time.

Italian Mosaics opens with a concise history of the mosaicists’s art in the millennium under consideration, tying together the strands of style, iconography, technique, and cultural context. The central part of the book examines nineteen celebrated mosaic cycles in detail, including those of the Mausoleum of Galla Placida in Ravenna (425–50), the oldest Early Christian monument whose decoration has survived intact; the Basilica of Santa Prassede in Rome, whose mosaics, commissioned

by Pope Paschal I (817–824), have recently been restored to their original splendor; and the Cathedral of Monreale near Palermo, whose elaborate decorative program includes the most extensive mosaic décor in Italy, executed in only a decade (1180–90). Each cycle is introduced by a descriptive and interpretive essay and then illustrated in its entirety in a series of full- and double-page photographs, most of them specially commissioned for this ­volume.

These stunning illustrations, which number some three hundred in all, succeed in capturing the unique aesthetic qualities that mosaics have always been prized for. Panoramic shots show how the mosaics respond to the natural light of their setting, forming a weightless expanse of radiant, glittering color that cannot be replicated in any other medium, while numerous details reveal the individual tesserae—minute squares of stone and glass—from which these ethereal visions were painstakingly crafted. With these splendid photographs and its authoritative text, Italian Mosaics—the first survey of its subject to be published— will stand alongside the Italian Frescoes series as an essential addition to the literature on art history. about the author J o ac h i m P o e s c h ke , a professor of art history at the University of Münster, is the author of numerous books on medieval and Ren­ aissance Italian art, including Italian Frescoes: The Age of Giotto, 1280– 1400 (Abbeville).

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Italian

Mosaics 300 –1300 J oa ch i m Poes ch k e Translated from the German

by R ussel l Stock m a n

A b b ev i lle Pres s Pub li s h e r s New Y or k   L ond on

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Front cover: Annunciation (detail from plate 202). Apse, Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome Back cover: Presbytery, south wall (detail from plate 69), San Vitale in Classe, Ravenna Frontispiece: Saint Theodore (detail from plate 26). Apse, Santi Cosma e Damiano, Rome Page 6: Empress Theodora and her retinue (detail from plate 63). Apse wall, San Vitale, Ravenna This book was produced in close collaboration between Hirmer Verlag, Munich, and Colophon/Andrea Grandese, Venice.

For the original edition Project Manager: Kerstin Ludolph Design and production: Albert Hirmer Editor: Jutta Allekotte Reproductions: Silverio Zanotto/Brisotto, Tezze di Piave (Treviso) Picture editors: Colophon srl, Venice For the English-language edition Editor: Susan Costello Copyeditor: Miranda Ottewell Production manager: Louise Kurtz Jacket design: Misha Beletsky Typography: Angela Taormina Copyright © 2010. Compilation, including selection of text and images, copyright © 2010 Hirmer Verlag, GmbH, Munich.

English translation copyright © 2010 Abbeville Press. All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to Abbeville Press, 137 Varick Street, New York, NY 10013. The text of this book was set in Brioso Pro. Printed and bound in Italy.

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ISBN 978-0-7892-1076-0 First edition 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Poeschke, Joachim.

[Mosaiken in Italien 300–1300. English] Italian mosaics, 300–1300 / Joachim Poeschke ; translated from the German

by Russell Stockman. —1st ed. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-7892-1076-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Mosaics, Medieval—Italy. 2. Mosaics, Italian. I. Title.

NA3790.P6313 2010 738.50945--dc22 2010014032 For bulk and premium sales and for text adoption procedures, write to Customer Service Manager, Abbeville Press, 137 Varick Street, New York, NY 10013 or call 1-800-ARTBOOK

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Contents Preface 7 Introduction 9

The Mosaics Rome

Santa Costanza

Mosaics in the Ambulatory Vaulting and the Apses 52 Plates 1–10 Rome

Santa Maria Maggiore

Mosaics on the Triumphal Arch (Former Back Wall of the Apse) and in the Nave 70 Plates 11–23 Rome

Santi Cosma e Damiano Apse Mosaic 94 Plates 24–30 Ravenna

Mausoleum of Galla Placidia 108 Plates 31–36 Ravenna

Orthodox Baptistery Cupola Mosaic 120 Plates 37–42 Ravenna

Arian Baptistery Cupola Mosaic 134 Plates 43–49 Ravenna

Sant’Apollinare Nuovo Nave Mosaics 144 Plates 50–59 Ravenna

San Vitale

Mosaics in the Apse and in the Presbytery 160 Plates 60–69 Ravenna

Apse Mosaic 206 Plates 84–90 Rome

Santa Maria in Trastevere Apse Mosaic 220 Plates 91–97 Cefalù

Cathedral

Mosaics in the Choir and in the Apse 232 Plates 98–105 Palermo

Cappella Palatina

Mosaics in the Sanctuary and the Nave 246 Plates 106–127 Monreale

Cathedral

Mosaics in the Sanctuary and the Nave 276 Plates 128–152 Venice

San Marco

Mosaics in the Interior, in the Narthexes, and on the Facade 314 Plates 153–174 Florence

Baptistery of San Giovanni Vaulting Mosaics 354 Plates 175–187 Rome

Santa Maria Maggiore Jacopo Torriti, Apse Mosaic 378 Plates 188–197 Rome

Santa Maria in Trastevere

Sant’Apollinare in Classe

Pietro Cavallini, Apse Mosaics 396 Plates 198–211

Rome

Appendix

Mosaics in the Apse, on the Apsidal Arch, on the ­Triumphal Arch, and in the Zeno Chapel 190 Plates 76–83

Bibliography 421 Index of Persons 000 Index of Places 000 Photo credits 000

Apse Mosaic 178 Plates 70–75

Santa Prassede

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Rome

San Clemente

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Introduction

M

osaics for centuries were considered to be the most imposing type of wall decoration. Made up of tiny squared stones or chips of glass called tesserae, they were an ideal adornment for large surfaces. They could not achieve the subtlety of detail possible in painting, but this is only apparent up close, and as a rule mosaics were intended to be viewed from a distance. They then had a powerful effect, and one of their undisputed virtues, as opposed to painting, was their durability. The fifteenth-century Florentine painter Domenico Ghirlandaio had this in mind when—as Vasari relates in the first edition of his Lives from 1550—he praised the art of mosaic as “�������� vera pittura ��������������������������������� per l’eternità�������������� ” (true painting for eternity). A charming formulation, but one that is only justified in relation to specific wall and panel paintings, for on the whole mosaics were scarcely less vulnerable to the depredations of time than other works of art. Many mosaics we know of from written or pictorial sources have been lost over the course of the centuries to haphazard destruction or rebuilding and remodeling. Often those that have survived have been subjected to extensive restoration after damage from earthquakes or intrusive rainwater. None of the great mosaic ensembles in Rome and Ravenna, Palermo and Monreale, Venice and Florence, has been spared.

In every age people have been fascinated by the unique aesthetic charm of mosaics, especially their response to light, which cannot be replicated in wall painting. Deliberately uneven placement of the tesserae could intensify this reflectivity, considerably enhancing their effect. Accordingly, inscriptions on many apse mosaics make special note of their radiance, their shimmering, luminous quality. Contemporary writers struggled to find words with which to express their primary sensation of light and color. They praised the variety and brilliance of the colors, as well as the sumptuous effect created by the combination of bright colors and a gold ground—a feature of increasing importance up into the Middle Ages. Viewers attested that it felt as if they had been granted a glimpse into another world.

No medium seemed so capable of capturing the spiritual in material form as mosaic, and it was particularly valued by scholars who saw light as the supreme manifestation of beauty and embodiment of the divine.

Such enthusiastic responses may seem puzzling to viewers of these mosaics today, for without artificial illumination they can seem somewhat lackluster. In part this is because

the original lighting conditions have been altered through later remodeling. This is particularly the case in the Early Christian and medieval churches of Rome, all of which were subjected to Baroque redesign. But often, especially in medieval church structures, the light would have been no brighter than today’s. Oil lamps and candles may have helped to make the mosaics more visible, to be sure, especially on festive occasions, but they could certainly not illuminate the works as uniformly as the modern traveler can by simply inserting a coin. Such intense lighting could never have been experienced by contemporaries. Once the three minutes are up, the lighting switches off, and the mosaics again retreat into twilight, taking on another, more discreet existence, but still not losing their great sensitivity to light.

Then the curve of the apse calotte becomes more apparent; the gold ground seems less uniform, gleaming forth only here and there and on the whole retreating behind the figures. Yet many details are lost, and much of what modern visitors are able to discover with the help of artificial light and binoculars was by no means so discernible to contemporary viewers.

We might wonder whether the designers of these pictorial programs, with their particular emphases, intended them to appeal to a larger audience or whether a more profound understanding of them was limited to a select few.

The question seems particularly relevant with regard to the more complex pictorial programs, whose enigmatic content—symbolic, typological, or ideological—is the chief interest of the present interpreter. We think of the many different readings, often widely divergent, of the triumphal arch mosaics at Santa Maria Maggiore, for example (plates 11–15). When these were created, not many people could have possessed the intellectual capacity and theological training to interpret the depicted scenes with any subtlety.

Sermons would have helped people understand them in only a very general way. As their deeper theological import was apparently not explained to ordinary parishioners, we must assume that intelligibility to the masses was not a major criterion in the conception of mosaic programs. Theologians would have had a major influence, along with their patrons and the artists themselves. The public may have understood their intentions at some times more than others. Presumably most viewers would have focused on the mosaics’ superficial content more than their hidden meaning. People Introduction 9

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probably responded to mosaic pictures in the way they respond to all pictures, being drawn to specific motifs rather than the structure of program as a whole or the threads linking the pictures’ specific contents. Most viewers must have simply surrendered themselves to the overpowering effect of the mosaics in awe and amazement—and in this respect we can assume that this was the intention of their creators.

Thanks to their unique aesthetic qualities, mosaics became a standard feature of prestigious interior decoration in Europe from antiquity up until the high Middle Ages.

They were even referred to as the imperial art par excellence. Though not to be taken altogether literally, the designation is partially justified, for imperial church foundations in the Early Christian, early Byzantine, and early medieval eras quite often incorporated elaborate mosaic decor. Outstanding examples are the mausoleums of Santa Costanza in Rome (plates 1–10) and Centcelles near Tarragona, the Lateran and St. Peter’s basilicas in Rome, the religious structures erected by Galla Placidia in Ravenna (plates 31–36), the Rotunda of St. George in Thessaloniki (figure 28), and Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The emperor Charle­ magne (768–814) continued the tradition by commissioning a mosaic—the only great mosaic north of the Alps—in the cupola of the Palatine Chapel in Aachen.

These early imperial donations set the standard for both larger and smaller structures and their mosaic decoration for centuries. In Rome, for example, beginning in the fifth century at the latest, popes and presbyters stepped forward as donors of mosaics, mostly in connection with new church buildings. Early examples can be seen at Santa Pudenzi­ ana (figure 5), Santa Sabina (figures 6, 7), and Santa Maria

Maggiore (plates 11–23). This circle of patrons was further expanded in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when after a long quiescence the art of mosaics experienced a new flowering in Italy. In addition to emperors, popes, bishops, abbots, and cardinals, the Norman kings of Sicily emerged as donors, not to mention the doges of Venice, who had their palace chapel of San Marco lavishly decorated with mosaics following Byzantine patterns (plates 153–74). This, in turn, inspired communes like Florence and Pisa to adorn their large new religious structures—in Florence the baptistery (plates 175–87), in Pisa the cathedral (figure 40)—at least in part with mosaics.

The present book deals solely with mosaics applied to walls and vaulting. Only marginal mention is made of the fact that mosaics could also find a number of other applications. In interior and exterior church decor they were even more versatile than wall paintings or sculptural ornament, for floors, too, could support mosaics. We think not only of marble floors with geometric designs of the antique opus sectile variety, or the colorful pavements of the socalled Cosmati, with their exclusively ornamental motifs, but also floors incorporating figural motifs like those in the cathedrals of Aquileia (figure 1) and Otranto. The former, which dates from the early fourth century, stands wholly in the tradition of the ornamental floors of antiquity, despite its Christian motifs. Its figural repertoire includes both Old Testament scenes like the story of Jonah and allegorical images. The center-aisle floor in Otranto’s cathedral, a work from the twelfth century, combines Old Testament figures and events with the labors of the months, fabulous beasts, and motifs from the life of Alexander the Great and

1 Mosaic floor. Cathedral, Aquileia

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the legend of King Arthur. Figural mosaic floors of all kinds were created in numerous other places in Italy as well. Their roots reach further back than those of wall and vaulting mosaics, for in Greek and Roman antiquity mosaics were primarily used for flooring.

Pliny relates (Natural History 36:31) that pavements of this kind were an invention of the Greeks, and as we see from the surviving signatures, Greeks were frequently called upon to create such works even in Roman times. The only materials appropriate for ornamental floors were naturally stones, and in the beginning they were not necessarily cut. Small pebbles could also produce a desirable effect.

Some of the earliest pebble mosaics, which presumably originated in Asia Minor, are found at Gordion in Phrygia, and dated to around 700 bc. Among the most splendid examples are those in Pella, the onetime residence of the Macedonian kings and birthplace of Alexander the Great. In them the technique was used with great refinement, with a wide range of colors that lend three-dimensionality to the figures and botanical ornaments. Yet it was only possible to achieve a finer texture and greater richness of color by using small stones cut into cube shapes, the above-mentioned tesserae.

These first appear in the second half of the third century bc, their upper surfaces averaging between seven and ten square millimeters. In especially fine work, called opus vermiculatum, they could even be considerably smaller.

When mosaic floors in the atria of villas and town houses were wet with rain or deliberately sprinkled with water, their colors became much more radiant. The only way to achieve the same effect permanently was to turn to tesserae made of glass, tiny squares cut from flat sheets of different colors.

This epoch-making step was probably taken as early as the second century bc in Alexandria, yet not until the early first century ad did glass tesserae come into more common use—probably because mosaics were then gaining popularity as decorations for wall and vaulting surfaces as well as in wall niches in nymphaea. Only rarely, and at a relatively late date, did mosaic pictures supplant traditional sculptured cult images in places of worship. One example is the Silvanus Mosaic from the Mithraeum at the Palazzo Imperiale in Ostia (figure 2). Dating from the third or early fourth century, and only a little over five feet (1.5 m) tall, it depicts the forest god, his head circled by a light blue nimbus, wearing a short tunic—the traditional laborer’s costume in antiquity— and holding a vine-pruning knife. Another mosaic is only documented in a dilettantish pen drawing from 1613. The inscription on the drawing relates that it was found in the apse of a Lupercalia chapel consecrated to the Roman shewolf and Romulus and Remus that had just been excavated in Rome near Sant’ Eufemia in Panisperna (Sear 1977).

Virtually no mosaics on Christian subjects have survived from the period preceding the 313 Edict of Milan and the great church foundations of Emperor Constantine the Great (306–337). There cannot have been many, for if there

2 Niche mosaic from the Mithraeum of the Palazzo Imperiale in Ostia. Vatican Museums, Rome

was pictorial decoration at all in the house churches of the pre-Constantine era, the appropriate medium appears to have been wall painting like that in the baptistery of a Christian house church (circa ad 250) found at Dura-Europos on the Euphrates in 1931–32. Beginning in the third century, once the Christians’ original proscription of pictures was relaxed and they became increasingly tolerated, wall paintings were also the preferred decoration for tomb chambers in the catacombs. It was in these that Christian art had its beginnings. At first it was purely classical in style but with Christian content. Pictures and symbols expressive of steadfast faith and the hope for salvation adorned walls and ceilings in the more richly decorated cubicula. They could also appear in the form of incised drawings on tomb slabs used to seal simple niche graves, and they are found on sarcophagi as reliefs, sometimes of quite lavish design. Tomb chambers and arcosolia decorated with mosaics instead of wall painting were the exception, and indications of unusual wealth. Roman examples are found in the Tomb of the Julii beneath St. Peter’s and in the Priscilla and Domitilla catacombs. In Naples there is the bishop’s crypt of the Catacombs of San Gennaro.

Most of these smaller-scale mosaics were produced after the middle of the fourth century. The only earlier one is the mosaic in the small chamber of the Tomb of the Julii in the necropolis beneath St. Peter’s Basilica (figure 3), which Introduction���� 11

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21 Saint Peter. Fragment from the triumphal arch mosaic in San Paolo fuori le Mura, Vatican Grotto, Rome

outwardly and inwardly. In contrast to the apse mosaics at Sant’Aquilino in Milan (figure 4) and Santa Pudenziana in Rome (figure 5), it is apparent that such depictions have become increasingly schematic and hierarchical. With Christ enthroned atop the globe, it was no longer appropriate to allow the accompanying figures to be seated as well, so in the lost apse mosaic at Sant’Agata dei Goti (figure 23), created between 462 and 470, in the former apsidal arch mosaic at San Lorenzo fuori le Mura (figure 9), and in the apse mosaic at San Teodoro (figure 8) the saints gathered around him all stand. The above-mentioned facade mosaic at Santa Maria in Turri, commissioned around 760 by Paul I, was more properly a Parousia than a Christ in Majesty.

Whereas the apse itself, the apsidal arch, and the triumphal arch were reserved for images suggestive of future events, those in the nave recalled memorable events from the past. They mainly presented Old and New Testament scenes meant to serve as guides to a life in the faith and— taken altogether—tell the story of salvation. Biblical exempla had played an important part in tomb art, in sarcophagus reliefs, and in catacomb painting since the third century.

From the beginning, some of the most popular motifs were the story of Jonah, the three youths in the fiery furnace, the sacrifice of Isaac, Daniel in the lion’s den, and Susanna and the elders. Such scenes were never included in the pictorial programs of apse mosaics, though they do appear—together with New Testament scenes—in the cupola mosaics at Santa Costanza (figure 54) and at around the same time in the Mausoleum of Centcelles. This intrusion would not be repeated later. In basilicas—as in the baptistery at DuraEuropos from around 250—biblical stories were relegated to the nave; examples are those at Santa Maria Maggiore (plates 16–23), also the former Old and New Testament fresco cycles in San Paolo fuori le Mura and St. Peter’s. The biblical stories on the former apsidal arch, the present-day triumphal arch, at Santa Maria Maggiore (plates 11–15) are exceptions to the rule. Their placement is explained by the overall program of the mosaics, which leads from Old Testament scenes in the nave to scenes of the childhood of Christ.

The latter were meant to illustrate the fulfillment of what had been prophesied long before. It is unclear whether the apsidal arch at Ravenna’s Sant’Apollinare ��������������� Nuovo���������� also presented scenes from the life of Christ in addition to the depictions of his miracles and parables on the walls of the nave.

Proportionally, far more of the available surfaces were covered with mosaics in vaulted structures like chapels, baptisteries, and mausoleums than in basilicas. In such interiors the mosaic decoration was continued above the walls into the vaulting, so that the entire space was filled with luxurious color and gleaming gold. The viewer’s gaze was drawn upward into the crowning cupola and to its central image, the culmination of and key to the entire pictorial program.

This decorative system, patterned after that of cruciform Byzantine churches with cupolas, would later be applied on a larger scale in San Marco in Venice (plate 153). It is

possible to form some idea of early mosaic decorations of this kind from Santa Costanza in Rome (plates 1–10) and the baptistery of San Giovanni in Fonte, in Naples (figures 24–26). In Naples the central motif in the cupola mosaic, created in around 400, is a golden Christogram backed by a starry sky. Below it the remainder of the vault is divided into eight sectors by richly structured framing. The upper portions are filled with bowls of fruit and birds flanked by elaborate draperies, the lower ones with figural scenes.

From the surviving sections of the latter it is clear that five of them pictured the miracle of the wine at Cana, Christ and the Samaritan woman, the Miraculous Draft of Fishes, the Women at the Tomb, and the traditio legis (figure 24).

On the wall beneath the cupola the apostles present gold wreaths (figure 25), their homage to the Christ symbol in the sky. Of the evangelists’ symbols that once filled the four corners, only the lion of Saint Mark (figure 26) and the angel of Saint Matthew survive. They are distinguished by a pronounced three-dimensionality, a striking feature of the baptistery’s mosaics in general, and one that is most closely matched in Rome in the figures and evangelists’ symbols at Santa Pudenziana (figure 5). And as in the Roman work, the Naples figures wear dramatic expressions; the lion of Saint Mark is an especially forceful example.

The mosaic decor produced a little more than a century later in the Chapel of St. Victor at Sant’Ambrogio in Milan (figure 27) is of a wholly different kind. The central motif is a bust of the saint in a medallion at the top of the cupola surrounded by a solid gold ground. On the side walls, against a blue ground, are depictions of four saints and the two Milanese bishops Maternus and Ambrose. The latter’s features are strikingly individualized, suggesting that his head was based on a portrait from life. Specific features like the large proportion of gold in the cupola, the only vague illusion of space provided by the blue and green tones on the side walls, and the realistic Saint Ambrose portrait have definite parallels in the Ravenna mosaics from the first half of the sixth century. This would seem to indicate that the Milan works were inspired by the latter, which would mean that they were created not around 500, as is often assumed, but more probably in the second quarter of the sixth century.

Notable structures with high-quality mosaics had been erected in Ravenna before the middle of the fifth century.

Emperor Honorius (ruled 393–423), the younger of the two sons of Theodosius I (ruled 379–395), had been given dominion over the western Roman Empire, and in 402 moved his residence from Milan to Ravenna for strategic reasons. The ambitious building activity that followed was continued after the abdication of the last West Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, in 476, under pressure from Odoacer. New structures were erected during the reign of King Theoderic the Great (493–526) and in the first decades of Byzantine rule. Just how much was accomplished under Emperor Honorius is unknown. The first documented

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22 Exequies of Pope Gregory the Great, with view of the facade of the old St. Peter’s.

Pen drawing. Farfa Codex 124, fol. 122, Eton College, Windsor

Opposite 24 Traditio legis. Vaulting mosaic, baptistery of San Giovanni in Fonte, Naples

foundations by the imperial family are those of his half sister Galla Placidia (circa 390–450), who after his death ruled in place of her still-underage son Valentinian III (425–455).

On a journey from Constantinople to Ravenna she and her children endured a storm at sea, and tradition has it that they were saved from shipwreck thanks to the intervention of John the Evangelist. By way of thanks, she commissioned a basilica in his honor in Ravenna, and had it decorated with mosaics—which were destroyed in 1568. The apse mosaic featured an enthroned Christ, and on the apsidal arch were pictures of Christ handing a book, presumably the Apoca-

lypse, to John the Evangelist and of the latter’s rescue of the empress and her children at sea; there were also mosaic portraits of members of the imperial family.

Another of Galla Placidia’s donations was the church of Santa Croce, also richly decorated with mosaics. All that remains of it is the memorial structure known as the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (plates 31–36). Of considerably smaller size than Rome’s Mausoleum of Constantina (plates 1–10), and erected on a cruciform ground plan, it placed different demands on the wall decor than the circular structure in Rome. Yet in their alternation of ornamental and figural motifs and deliberately varied styles, the mosaics of the two structures are similar. Flat and illusionistic ornaments appear side by side, as do panels with distinct frames and figures with no framing at all. The contextual and formal relationships between the mosaics of the upper wall section and the one in the vaulting are unparalleled; the apostles on the walls salute the cross that appears above them in a starry sky inside the cupola. This sort of trespass across boundaries set by the architecture exhibits a freedom of artistic choice wholly in conformity with the West Roman art tradition, but would soon give way to the more rigid schematization seen in the Arian Baptistery (plate 43) and in Sant’Apollinare Nuovo (figures 66, 67; plates 51–53).

Initial steps in this development are already visible in the tightly structured cupola mosaic in the Orthodox Baptistery (plates 37–42). Compared to the mosaic decor of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, it has a considerably greater percentage of gold, though not yet so much as to overwhelm the wealth of colors and illusionistic effects. It is also worth noting that the figures still move freely despite the radial scheme that structures the vaulting decor, and there is ample space for a wealth of ornamental forms. In all these respects the cupola mosaic in the Orthodox Baptistery differs markedly from the one in the Rotunda of St. George in Thessaloniki (figure 28), to which it is occasionally compared. The differences between it and the cupola mosaic

23 Ciampini, reconstruction of former apse mosaic at Sant’Agata dei Goti, 1690.

Engraving

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25 Apostle. Vaulting mosaic, baptistery of San Giovanni in Fonte, Naples

in the Arian Baptistery, created some fifty years later, are no less obvious—particularly since the earlier mosaic was unquestionably the design for the later one.

Beginning in around 430, Ravenna represented a major new field of activity for mosaicists, but no documents survive to tell us where they came from. Rome was still the center of the art in Italy at the beginning of the fifth century, yet the Ravenna mosaics, unlike those of Rome, appear to have been somewhat influenced by art production in Constantinople from the start. This is an issue that is impossible to resolve definitively—or even in a general way. The opinions of experts frequently differ, even with regard to specific features, ultimately because Constantinople exercised a continuing influence of the art of this period but one that is difficult to define. So few of its artworks have survived that no obvious ensembles exist to which the Ravenna mosaics might be compared. The only works in the same medium are fragments of the splendid ornamental floor from the Great Palace, presumably dating from the fifth century.

But these do not present any similarities to the Ravenna mosaics. The rich colors of the mosaic decor in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (plates 31–36) and in the Orthodox Baptistery (plates 37–42), the freedom of movement and pronounced physicality of the figures, the attempts to create the illusion of space by means of vibrant effects of light and shadow—none of these betray any notable influence from East Roman mosaic art if one considers the surviving evidence from this period. This consists of the vaulting mosaic in the Rotunda of St. George (figure 28) and the apse mosaic at Hosios David in Thessaloniki—the dates of which are disputed. In Ravenna’s mosaics from the sixth century, beginning with those in the Archbishop’s Chapel (figure 29), the forms are more rigid, the line drawing more distinct. In terms of style, they are close to the Theoderic-era mosaics in Sant’Apollinare Nuovo (plates 50–59). Here, as there, the figures are not wholly two-dimensional, but neither are they figures in space, more precisely living space. The same can be said of the figures in the clerestory scenes at Sant’Apollinare Nuovo�������������������������������������������������������� (plates 56–59); the differences are obvious if one compares them to the nave mosaics at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome (plates 16–23). In Sant’Apollinare Nuovo the figures have not lost all physical substance in their relationship to the surface and to the framing; the scenic elements, however, have become only two-dimensional staffage. The amount of space decreases as the surfaces around and between figures are filled with architectural and landscape motifs—if indeed a solid gold ground does not supplant them. We can trace this process virtually step by step in Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, the Arian Baptistery (plates 43–49), San Vitale (plates 60–69), and Sant’Apollinare in Classe (plates 70–75), and it seems certain that the increasing influence of Byzantine art is behind it. Yet scholars have argued, not without justification, that precedents for the sometimes highly expressive physiognomies that are an important element in sixth-cen-

26 Lion of Saint Mark.

Vaulting mosaic, baptistery of San Giovanni in Fonte, Naples

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tury Ravenna mosaics can be found in West Roman portraiture instead. This seems particularly applicable to the decidedly realistic faces in the two donation scenes in San Vitale (plates 62–66). It is all the more puzzling, then, that the mosaic in the apse calotte at San Vitale (plate 61) has so little in common stylistically with the apse mosaic at Santi Cosma e Damiano in Rome (plates 24–30), produced only a short time before. In the Ravenna mosaics Western and Eastern elements become so interwoven, especially beginning in the early sixth century, that it can only be concluded that mosaic artists from both West and East worked there either in collaboration or competition from this point on at the latest. Quite apart from this issue, toward the middle of the century there is a distinct decline in the quality of the mosaics’ design. This is already evident in the Arian Baptistery (plates 43–49), and it only becomes more pronounced in Sant’Apollinare in Classe (plates 70–75) and in the nave mosaics executed under Archbishop Agnellus at Sant’Apollinare Nuovo (plates 51–53).

In their planning of pictorial programs for mosaics, Ravenna and Rome took largely different routes. The only similarities are found in specific details. They are most apparent in San Vitale, both in the apse calotte (figure 68; plate 61)

and on the apsidal arch (plate 60), where the cities Jerusalem and Bethlehem take their familiar places left and right.

In the apse calotte the church’s patron saint and donor are being recommended to a Christ enthroned on a sphere, but here, significantly—in contrast to Santi Cosma e Damiano in Rome (plate 24)—it is not Peter and Paul who serve as intercessors but rather two angels. And elsewhere in Ravenna angels tend to flank the enthroned or standing Christ more frequently than in Rome. We do not know what was pictured in the apse and on the apsidal arch at Sant’Apollinare Nuovo. There are certain parallels for the prophet figures in the nave (plates 51–54) in Roman wall painting, specifically the nave frescoes in the old St. Peter’s and in San Paolo fuori le Mura. But the former apse mosaic at San Michele in Africisco, now in Berlin’s Bode Museum, has no counterpart in Rome. In the apse calotte Christ stands between two angels, holding a cross-shaped staff in his right hand and an open book in his left. The mosaic on the apsidal arch at Sant’Apollinare in Classe, however, which dates from the ninth or tenth century, borrows from Roman precedents.

In it the Pantocrator appears at the top between the symbols of the evangelists, and below these there is a frieze of lambs—but without the Agnus Dei (plate 70).

27 Vaulting mosaic, Chapel of St. Victor in Ciel d’Oro, Sant’Ambrogio, Milan

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28 Cupola mosaic (detail), Rotunda of St. George, Thessaloniki

It has already been noted that Ravenna’s mosaics may have served as templates for contemporary works in Milan. Their influence is even more apparent in the Adriatic region, especially in the basilica erected in about 540 by Bishop Euphrasius (530–560) in Parenzo, present-day Poreč (figure 30). An enthroned Madonna and Child backed by a gold ground occupies the center of the main apse. Angels are presenting Saint Maurus, the donor, and the archdeacon Claudius, as well as three other saints. Along the top edge of the calotte twelve medallions with busts of female saints frame the Lamb of Christ, and on the apsidal arch Christ sits enthroned atop a globe between the apostles.

Here motifs from various Ravenna mosaics were combined: the Madonna and Child from Sant’Apollinare Nuovo (plate 50), the angels leading saints and the donor toward the throne from San Vitale (figure 68), and the medallions with saints from the Archbishop’s Chapel (figure 29). The stiffness in the drapery forms is also prefigured in Ravenna, most obviously in the later apostle figures in the cupola mosaic at the Arian Baptistery (plates 46, 47, 49).

In the tenth century, the so-called saeculum obscurum, virtually no new mosaics were produced in Rome or in other cities in Italy. The only modest exception, whose dating is disputed, is the mosaic from the tomb of Emperor Otto II (973–983) in the old St. Peter’s, which pictures Christ between Peter and Paul. No major churches were built in the period. Change would come only around the middle of the eleventh century. The impetus behind it came after reform within the church and its new relationship with secular authority. From the conflict between imperium and sacer­dotium the papacy and the church emerged strengthened, and this would have ramifications in art and architecture. New cathedrals and monastic churches were built in many places in Europe, and in their size and the lavishness of their decoration they far surpassed their predecessors.

The new abbey church at Monte Cassino was only made possible by this reform. Saint Benedict established the monastery, the birthplace of Western monasticism, south of Rome in ad 529. Its new church was consecrated on October 1, 1071, in the presence of Pope Alexander II (1061–1073), several cardinals, and numerous other high

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29 Vaulting mosaic, Archbishop’s Chapel, Ravenna

ecclesiastics. A three-aisle basilica with a transept and three apses, it was erected in a mere five years. Its builder, Abbot Desiderius, later Pope Victor III (1086/87), spared neither effort nor expense in creating a structure of particular splendor. Precious materials, including antique marble columns and capitals, were transported by ship and overland from Rome, and since there were no mosaic artists available in Italy at the time, a number were summoned from faraway Constantinople. The chronist Leo of Ostia, a monk at the monastery, left an eyewitness account in which he praises the abbot for having overcome this difficulty in his pious zeal for building and his insistence that his new church be richly decorated with mosaics. Unfortunately, however, he provides few details about them. He merely says that they

extended across the main apse, the triumphal arch, and the atrium, and that the apse mosaic pictured John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. He does not mention its central motif—possibly a Christ enthroned.

The chronist further implies that by engaging Byzantine mosaicists, Desiderius hoped to breathe new life into the art, which had fallen into neglect in Italy for more than five hundred years. His hope was soon fulfilled. Immediately following Monte Cassino, Bishop Alfanus, a friend of the abbot, commissioned an apse mosaic in the new cathedral he built in Salerno. Alfanus had written a panegyric on the new church at Monte Cassino, in which—even before Leo of Ostia—he noted that the art of picturing human figures in glass had been lost in Italy for 450 years. Although Introduction���� 31

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his estimate was incorrect, his observation clearly indicates that at Monte Cassino they were indeed conscious of reviving a long-interrupted artistic tradition.

The example of Monte Cassino was imitated not only in Campania, but also—after a certain delay—in Rome.

Church building had almost completely ceased there in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and change came only at the beginning of the twelfth century with such new foundations as San Clemente, Santa Maria in Cosmedin, San Crisogono, and Santa Maria in Trastevere. With them Rome’s mosaic tradition was revived in grand style; during the next two centuries important mosaics would be created in a number of churches, some of them borrowing motifs from Early Christian and early medieval apse pictures.

These borrowings were nevertheless limited to only secondary motifs—the lamb frieze in the base register, the hand of God holding a victory wreath at the top of the apse calotte, or the bust of the Pantocrator flanked by the evangelists’ symbols on the apsidal arch (figure 72; plates 84, 91).

The subjects featured in twelfth-century apse compositions were wholly new. One already sees this in the apse mosaic at San Clemente (plate 84), though its lush acanthus vine and stags drawn to the spring were prefigured in Early Christian art (plate 32). The central motif, an image of the crucified Christ mourned by the Virgin and John the Evangelist, was unprecedented. The subject is no longer the anticipated Second Coming. The Crucifixion and the way Christ is portrayed prefigure the Passion mysticism that saw its culmination in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Yet in this later period the Passion itself becomes the actual picture subject, one intended to move the viewer to contemplation and prayer. In San Clemente the Crucifixion group is part of a larger symbolic context.

In terms of style, no other works can be directly related to the mosaic in the apse calotte. Its resemblance to the Deesis mosaic from roughly the same time in the narthex of the Basilian monastery Grottaferrata, south of Rome, is only general.

The subjects of the apse mosaics at Santa Maria in Trastevere (plates 91–97) and Santa Francesca Romana (figure 31) were new and wholly representative of the period.

The cult of the Virgin had been reflected in Roman apse mosaics before, to be sure, but here the inspiration came from the north rather than from Byzantium. North of the Alps the wave of Mary worship that swept across Europe in the twelfth century was more widely reflected in art. Yet it is significant that in Italy most of the century’s new cathedrals were consecrated to the Virgin, especially her assumption into heaven. And this is precisely what is pictured in the apse mosaic in Santa Maria in Trastevere. There Mary is seated next to Christ on the heavenly throne, and the Synthronos is combined with the bride-bridegroom motif from the Song of Songs. Roughly 150 years later, Jacopo Torriti’s large apse mosaic in Santa Maria Maggiore (plates 188–97) takes up the same motif, but there it becomes a ceremonial

Coronation of the Virgin as well. Closer in date to the work at Santa Maria in Trastevere is the apse mosaic in Santa Francesca Romana, presumably commissioned by Pope Alexander III in around 1165–67. For centuries, this church next to the Forum Romanum has been known officially as Santa Maria Nova, which explains why the Virgin, in this case an enthroned Madonna and Child, was placed in the center of the apse composition here as well. She is flanked by the apostles John, James, Peter, and Andrew, their figures copied from prototypes in the former apse mosaic at Sant’Andrea in Catabarbara (figure 60), which also provided the pattern for the Peter figure in the Santa Maria in Trastevere mosaic (plate 95). The round-arched arcades framing the figures are a distinctly medieval element found only at Santa Francesco Romana. The church’s apsidal arch once featured the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, as earlier at Santa Maria in Trastevere (plates 96, 97), and the evangelists’ symbols paying homage to the cross. Jeremiah’s inscription ribbon held a quote from Baruch 3:36.

The facade of Santa Francesca Romana was also decorated with a mosaic in the twelfth century. It is only documented in a sketch from 1585, and presumably pictured an Ascension of Christ. Mosaics covering the full width of a church facade were unique to Rome. To protect them from rain, it became customary in the Middle Ages to either slant that strip of wall outward or add a coving above it, for which reason it came to be called a cavetto. The mosaic on the facade of Santa Francesca Romana was presumably such a cavetto mosaic. The one at Santa Maria in Trastevere (figure 32), which dates in part from the thirteenth century, in part from the early fourteenth, depicts an enthroned Madonna and Child in the form of a Madonna Lactans in the center, and virgins with oil lamps approaching from left and right. Restorations have so distorted the originals that one could be tempted to see in the latter the wise and foolish virgins, but this can hardly have been intended.

In twelfth-century Roman churches mosaic decor was restricted to apses and facades. In other Italian regions, where there was greater adherence to the standards of Byzantine decor than in Rome, the entire sanctuary might be filled with mosaics, as was customary in middle Byzantine cruciform churches topped by cupolas. Two such regions were the Veneto and Sicily. Over the course of the twelfth century both would become major new mosaic centers. To both the aspiring Venetian Republic and the newly established Norman kingdom in southern Italy it was a matter of prestige that their large new churches should be filled with mosaics. There was no local tradition they might build upon, and in Rome the resurgence of the art had not yet begun—or was just getting under way. Like Desiderius of Monte Cassino, both the Venetians and the Norman kings had to send to Constantinople for mosaic artists capable of realizing their projects.

The Normans’ conquest of southern Italy had not only

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turned the region into a unified state and an important factor in European politics, it also created a cultural landscape with a character all its own. An important milestone was reached on Christmas in 1130, when Duke Roger II was crowned king in Palermo. The new monarch’s kingdom extended across the island of Sicily and onto the mainland, encompassing not only Apulia and Campania but even Calabria and the Abruzzi. He nevertheless kept his residence in Palermo, in the western part of the island, just as it had been under the Muslims and Count Roger I. In the first year of his reign Roger commissioned both a new palace chapel and a new cathedral in Cefalù, not far to the east of Palermo. These were to be the most splendid church structures ever built by the Normans, and would later be surpassed only by the cathedral in Monreale built by King William II (1166/71–1189). Along with other new churches and monasteries, including the Martorana, San Giovanni degli��������������������������������������������������������� Eremiti������������������������������������������������� �������������������������������������������������������� , and Palermo’s cathedral, royal palaces and villas sprang up in and around Palermo in the years between 1130 and 1190, and contemporaries were dazzled by their beauty and magnificence. The Hauteville family had established a foothold in southern Italy in the eleventh century, but it was only after it transformed itself into a royal house that Sicily experienced a flowering of art unique for its blending of Latin, Greek, Arabic, Mediterranean, and Northern European traditions.

No structure better illustrates this than Palermo’s Cap­ pella Palatina (plates 106–27), which was outfitted with every imaginable luxury. It is presumed to have been consecrated in 1140, and its chief adornments, in addition to its lavish use of colored marbles and carved and delicately painted wooden ceilings, are its mosaics. They cover every wall surface in the presbytery and the nave, and were produced, mainly by Byzantine mosaicists, over a period of roughly thirty years. During these same years other Byzantine artists worked for Roger II in the cathedral in Cefalù (plates 98–105). Construction of Cefalù’s cathedral, required by the king’s creation of a new bishopric, began in 1131. A dedication inscription in the apse bears the date 1148, by which point at least the mosaics in the apse had been finished. The mosaic decor, which was apparently not planned for at the beginning, extends beyond the apse into the eastern bay of the choir, and it is possible that it was meant to fill the adjacent bay as well, but there is no sure evidence of this.

It was in Cefalù that a half-figure of the Pantocrator (plates 98, 100), traditionally found in center cupola in Byzantine churches, first found its way, with considerably increased dimensions, into an apse calotte. It would be imitated soon afterward in both the Cappella Palatina (plates 107–8) and the cathedral in Monreale (figure 78; plates 128, 130).

The royal donor’s example set a precedent. In 1143, the year that appears beneath the cupola mosaic in the Cappella

30 Apse mosaic, Basilica Eufrasiana, Poreč

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31 Apse mosaic, Santa Francesca Romana, Rome

Palatina, George of Antioch commissioned the building of Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio in Palermo, also known as the Martorana (figures 33–35). It was dedicated to the Greek rite, and was also decorated with mosaics. The donor was Syrian by birth, had profited richly as commander of the royal fleet, and served as the king’s chancellor. He died in 1151, by which time his church was probably finished. Later interventions greatly altered its architecture, and its original complement of mosaics was decimated. The church was patterned after cruciform Byzantine structures topped by cupolas. The main apse, redesigned in the Baroque era, presumably featured an image of the Virgin; this is suggested by the fact that the church was consecrated to her, also by the presence of half-figures of her parents, Joachim and Anne, in the calottes of the side apses. The cupola features not a bust of the Pantocrator, as in the Cappella Palatina (plate 106), but rather a full-figure Christ enthroned with angels bowing to him in the register below (figure 33). These are followed in the vaults beneath the tambour by scenes from the life of the Virgin—the Nativity of Christ (figure 34) and the Dormition (figure 35)—as well as apostle figures. Iconographic and stylistic analogies are found in the mosaics in Cefalù (plates 98–105) and those of the Cappella Palatina (plates 106–27), which suggests that the same workshop created all three. Specific to the Martorana are the two mosaics in the narthex. One pictures the donor, George of Antioch, cowering at the feet of the Madonna (figure 80), who holds a ribbon inscribed in Greek with a prayer for his soul. She thus functions as intercessor between the donor and the figure of Christ giving his blessing in the upper right corner. With the other mosaic George paid homage to his king (figure 79). It pictures Roger II, dressed in Byzantine

court finery, receiving a pearl-encrusted crown from Christ.

This is a perfectly blatant, unapologetic imitation of the type of Byzantine coronation scene commonly pictured in miniatures and ivories, and was intended to underscore the fact that the Normans ruled Sicily by divine right. The two mosaics are not in their original locations; they may once have appeared in analogous spots in the church’s former narthex, although the donor mosaic could have come from George’s tomb.

The churches commissioned by Roger II and his chancellor were far surpassed in size and splendor by the one created by the king’s grandson, William II. In 1174, at the latest, he built a vast Benedictine monastery in Monreale, whose church was promptly elevated to cathedral status, as it was to be the seat of a new bishopric. The imposing structure, complete with a large cloister and lavish marble and mosaic decorations, was completed in a mere fifteen years.

No other church in Italy would receive such extensive mosaic decor (plates 128–52). Its mosaics are further distinguished by a uniformity in style and program unmatched by either the Cappella Palatina (plates 106–27) or Venice’s San Marco (plates 153–74). One has to assume that a single large and tightly organized workshop labored without interruption, following a preestablished plan, to accomplish such an immense task. As in Cefalù, the picture that dominates the entire interior is a half-figure of the Pantocrator, here considerably enlarged, in the apse (figure 78; plates 128, 130). Beneath it the Virgin, the cathedral’s patron, sits enthroned with the Christ child on her lap and flanked by the apostles. This feature was also exemplified in Cefalù; however that program was expanded in Monreale with additional rows of figures, extensive cycles picturing the life

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and miracles of Christ, the lives of Peter and Paul, and Old Testament scenes from the Creation up to Jacob’s wrestling with the angel. Around the time that Monreale’s cathedral was under construction, Palermo’s archbishop, affronted— as was intended—by the king’s creation of a new bishopric in Monreale, commissioned a new cathedral of his own. In many respects it was similar to the one in Monreale, but the cathedral lacked mosaic decor, so it could by no means compare with the royal foundation.

From the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries mosaicists from Greece would also find ample employment in Venice, in the service of patrons of a different rank than those in Sicily. Even earlier, in the late tenth century, it appears that Greek artists had been imported to Venice to assist in the decoration of the second San Marco, erected in the reign of the doge Pietro Orseolo. A few decades later some of their compatriots were engaged at the cathedral on Torcello, one of the islands in the lagoon. The mosaic in the main apse of that church, remodeled under Bishop Orso Orseolo in 1108 (figure 81), was presumably completed around the middle of the eleventh century, and the majority of the apostle figures aligned beneath the Hodegetria can be attributed to that same period. Some of the heads of the apostles, like the Madonna figure in the apse calotte and the Annunciation on the apsidal arch, were replaced in the late twelfth century. The mosaics in the south side apse (figure 36), portraying an enthroned Christ between two archangels and below him the bishop saints Gregory, Martin, Augustine, and Ambrose, date from the end of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth century, as does the mosaic in the vault.

The latter, in an obvious borrowing from the presbytery

at San Vitale in Ravenna (plate 67), features the Lamb of God in a medallion supported by four angels. The dating of the Last Judgment on the entry wall (figure 88) is highly uncertain. Estimates range from the late eleventh to the early thirteenth century, and it appears that the mosaicists responsible for the lower registers—apparently redone in the late twelfth century—had previously worked on the Ascension mosaic in San Marco (plates 158, 159). The Judgment itself, Byzantine in style and pictured in narrative breadth, takes up only half the height of the wall. Above it are a large-​format depiction of Christ’s descent into hell and a Crucifixion. The latter was completely reworked in the nineteenth century, as was most of the former.

The artists from Constantinople who first worked on the mosaics in the main apse at Torcello appear to have been the same ones who a short time later created the first mosaics at the new San Marco, the building of which had begun in the 1060s. These were on the main portal and pictured the four evangelists. The fact that the third San Marco was designed as a cruciform structure with cupolas, after the pattern of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, meant that the spaces that lent themselves to mosaics were completely different from those in Rome, in Torcello, or in the Norman churches in Sicily. The Byzantine structure not only presented specific wall and vaulting surfaces in need of mosaic decoration, but also to some extent dictated the pictorial program. Yet it was clearly not established at the outset like the one in Monreale. Moreover, the production of the mosaics in the church’s interior and its two narthexes took far longer than the work in Monreale—nearly two hundred years, not to mention major campaigns from the period after 1300. At the beginning, namely

32 Facade mosaic (detail), Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome

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33 Cupola mosaic, Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio (Martorana), Palermo

in the late eleventh century, mosaics were only applied to the main portal and the apse. They were extended gradually, with large surfaces of solid gold as a ground, across all the walls and vaults. The heterogeneous program includes an enthroned Christ above Venice’s patron saints in the apse (figure 83), and in the cupolas on the longitudinal axis, a half-figure of Christus Emmanuel ringed by the Virgin and prophets (plate 154), an Ascension (plates 158, 159), and an Outpouring of the Holy Ghost (plate 157). Added to these are scenes from the life of John the Evangelist (plate 155), from the stories of Mark and Clement (figure 84), of Christ’s childhood and temptations (plate 156), and of the Passion (plates 160, 162). There are also single images of Christ, the Virgin, and prophets, a Deesis above the main portal (figure 86), and two pictures relating the rediscovery of the relics of Saint Mark in 1091 (plate 163)—not to mention scenes added over the course of later centuries.

Work on the interior mosaics was completed by around

the middle of the thirteenth century. It had been accomplished in several phases with extended interruptions, and had included the restoration of portions already finished that had been damaged by earthquakes and fires. The result is an ensemble of pictures widely divergent in style, for any number of new artists was required over such a long period of time. Although numerous scholars have tried to ascribe dates to its various components, at least the mosaics produced in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the sequence in which they were produced is unclear to this day. However, it is universally acknowledged that the greatest artistic achievements are the mosaics in the Ascension Cupola (plates 158, 159) and the sequence of Mount of Olives scenes in the right side aisle of the west arm (plate 162).

The highly animated figures in the former, whose emotions are reflected in their billowing drapery, have a certain similarity to mosaics in Monreale’s cathedral (plates 128–52). In the latter, however, such tempestuous movement is wholly

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absent. In its place, the figures are rendered with a new monumentality, and appear more subdued. Gestures and expressions are more nuanced as well, and greater attention is paid to the relationships between figures and between figures and elements of the landscape. The latter are no longer as rudimentary as in earlier mosaics, and serve to tie the scenes together. Scholars have seen this as both a return to Byzantine patterns and a reflection of the French Gothic style. At this same time, the sculptural ornaments on San Marco’s main portal reveal influences from both artistic traditions. Like the mosaics, these underscore the fact that Venice, more than any other major art center in Italy, lay at a cultural crossroads, where two artistic hemispheres virtually overlapped. The conventions followed in Venice not only came from diverse places, they also represented traditions widely separated in time. This is most obvious in the cycles presented in the basilica’s west and north narthexes (plates 164–72), into which the mosaic decoration began to be extended in around 1220. Unlike the interior, where the biblical events were all drawn from the New Testament, these spaces would be adorned with Old Testament scenes exclusively, beginning with the story of the Creation (plates 164, 165). A striking feature of these works is that the majority were based on illustrations in a Genesis manuscript from the late fifth century, the so-called Cotton Genesis,

presumed to have been produced in Alexandria. Yet around 1280, once the artists arrived at the last space, the Moses Cupola in the north narthex (plates 171, 172), the patterns they worked from were the illuminations in a contemporary Byzantine manuscript. Between the early mosaics in the apse and the Clement Chapel (figures 83, 84) and those from the second half of the thirteenth century, their narrative skill had visibly increased. The best examples are the mosaics in the Moses Cupola, even those of the third Joseph Cupola, the mosaics in the basilica’s interior commemorating the rediscovery of the Saint Mark relics (plate 163), and the mosaic above the Porta di Sant’Alipio (plate 174).

There are no documents telling us where the mosaic artists who worked at San Marco came from. At the beginning they were surely Greeks. It is unclear when and to what extent they were joined by native artists. According to Demus (1984), this must have been relatively early, before the middle of the twelfth century. A bill of sale from 1158

Bottom left 34 Nativity. Vaulting mosaic, Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio (Martorana), Palermo Bottom right 35 Dormition. Vaulting mosaic, Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio (Martorana), Palermo

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mosaic in San ��������������������������������������������� Paolo���������������������������������������� ��������������������������������������� fuori���������������������������������� ��������������������������������� le������������������������������� ������������������������������ Mura�������������������������� (figure 42). This is evidence of the Romans’ dependence on foreign mosaicists.

Unfortunately, the mosaic in question, which shares certain iconographic features with the lost apse mosaic in the old St. Peter’s, has not survived undamaged. Like the structure itself, it had to be completely redone after the devastating fire in 1823, although a few original fragments in the lower section, including the donor figure at Christ’s feet, were preserved. In addition, several fragments are now exhibited in the sacristy, including the head of the Saint Peter figure, which attests to the high artistry of the medieval mosaic (figure 44). In the apse calotte Saints Luke, Paul, Peter, and Andrew are gathered around an enthroned Christ, with the donor pope kneeling at his feet. The paradisial landscape is simpler, and is not so antique in flavor as the one in the mosaic at the old St. Peter’s. The most obvious divergences from the earlier mosaic are seen in the base register. Here, for the first time in Roman apse mosaics since the sixth century, the obligatory frieze of lambs is missing, replaced by the empty throne surrounded by two angels and the apostles. The instruments of the Passion are pictured on the throne, a motif ultimately derived from Byzantine iconography alluding to the Last Judgment.

Honorius III’s successor, Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241), once again focused on the old St. Peter’s mosaics. During

his pontificate, the fifth-century facade mosaic (figure 22) was completely redone. The composition now featured an enthroned Christ instead of the Lamb, flanked by the Virgin, Saint Peter, and the evangelists and their symbols. In the lower section the twenty-four elders and the lambs emerging from the cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem were preserved from the earlier mosaic. Only a few fragments of the medieval facade mosaic survive, among them the head of the donor pope.

It appears that a few decades passed before mosaicists were again required in Rome, and at first only to a very modest extent. Around the middle of the thirteenth century there were no major papal initiatives in the area of church building and decoration. The situation changed only with the accession of Pope Nicholas III (1277–1280), from the Roman Orsini family. In around 1280 he built the Cappella������������������������������������������������ Sancta Sanctorum next to the Lateran, and decorated it not only with porphyry columns, colored marbles, and wall paintings, but also with a mosaic in the vault above the altar. It pictured a Christ giving benediction inside an aureole supported by angels (figure 45), and busts of saints appeared in the lunettes. After some sixty years a mosaic artist once again appears on the Roman stage, but who he was and where he came from are unknown. In the literature it has been noted that his work is similar in style to the apse

37 Facade mosaic, San Frediano, Lucca

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mosaic of Santa Maria Maggiore (plates 188–197), created

by Jacopo Torriti and his workshop more than a decade later, and some have even claimed that the Sancta Sanctorum mosaic is that workshop’s earliest surviving work. All that is certain is that it can be considered a harbinger of the major mosaic flowering in Rome a few years later during the pontificate of Pope Nicholas IV (1288–1292).

In some respects this renewal was indebted to the abovementioned mosaic commissions by popes of the early thirteenth century, and can be seen in the context of the renovation and remodeling of two of the great Early Christian basilicas. Nicholas IV first had the Early Christian apse mosaic at the Lateran completely redone between 1288 and 1291 (figure 46). The bust of the Savior from the earlier mosaic was transferred into the new one. In addition, the gem-studded cross atop the hill of paradise with its rivers and drinking stags may also have been saved from the older work. Distinctly thirteenth-century elements are the figures of saints on either side of the cross—on the left the Virgin recommending the donor pope, who kneels at her feet, along with Saints Francis, Peter, and Paul, on the right John the Baptist, Saint Anthony, John the Evangelist, and Saint Andrew. The rest of the apostles are pictured between the windows below the apse calotte. A Franciscan monk kneels next to James the Greater with a compass and square in his hands, and next to Saint Bartholomew another Franciscan brother sorting mosaic stones is identified in an inscription as Fra Jacopo da Camerino, an assistant to the work’s master. The monk kneeling at the feet of Saint James is presumably Jacopo Torriti, the artist responsible for the mosaic’s design, who signed the apse mosaic and indicated his role with the tools that serve as his attributes. There are a few distinct similarities to the apse mosaic at Santa Maria Maggiore (plates 188–197) that Torriti completed in 1295.

But today, of course, only motifs can be compared, for the apse mosaic at San Giovanni����������������������������� ������������������������������������� in Laterano was removed during the expansion of the choir in 1883–84 and subsequently replaced; it is essentially only a re-creation from the late nineteenth century.

Another commission from Nicholas IV was the apse mosaic at Santa Maria Maggiore. He first had the choir of the Early Christian basilica remodeled, which involved the construction of a transept and shifting the apse back a few meters. In the course of this work the fifth-century apse mosaic, possibly picturing an enthroned Madonna and Child, was destroyed. The center of the new apse composition features a Coronation of the Virgin instead, a subject uncommon in Italy up to that time, and one that had never before been presented in such monumental form. That it should have been pictured here was mainly owing to the writings of Franciscan theologians like Bonaventura and Matteo d’Acquasparta. Nicholas IV was himself a Franciscan, and had served as general of the order since 1274.

He participated in the planning of the pictorial program with Cardinal Jacopo Colonna, archpriest at Santa Maria

Maggiore, who saw the project through to its completion and is pictured in the mosaic as a donor along with the pope. In Santa Maria Maggiore the distinctly medieval subject of the Coronation of the Virgin is combined in the margins, in a manner typical of Roman art of the Middle Ages, with Early Christian motifs. Among these are the velum at the top of the calotte, the acanthus vines on either side, and the river landscape with figures at the bottom edge. The latter was possibly copied from the apse mosaic in the Lateran (figure 46), in which the saints witnessing the Coronation of the Virgin were also prefigured.

An unusual feature of the apse mosaic at Santa Maria Maggiore is worth noting, namely that at the window level, as an expansion of the pictorial program, it includes scenes

38 Coronation of the Virgin.

Mosaic above the main portal, inside, cathedral, Florence

39 Apse mosaic, San Miniato al Monte, Florence

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40 Apse mosaic, Cathedral Santa Maria Assunta, Pisa

Opposite top 41 Giacomo Grimaldi, apse mosaic from the old St. Peter’s.

Watercolor drawing.

Instrumenta autentica, Cod. Barb. Lat. 2733, fols. 158v–159r, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rome Opposite bottom 42 Apse mosaic, San Paolo fuori le Mura, Rome

from the life of the Virgin and a Dormition (plates 193–97).

This is the first time that the base register was given over to scenes relating to the main subject above. A short time later, in imitation of this idea, a series of Mary scenes, beginning with the Nativity of the Virgin, were belatedly added to the mosaic in the apse calotte at Santa Maria in Trastevere (plates 200–211). Indisputably, these mosaics were the work of Pietro Cavallini, the leading painter in Rome around 1300. Yet the dating of his activity at Santa Maria in Trastevere is hotly debated. For a long time the date 1291 was accepted, but it is more probable that Cavallini did not finish the mosaics before 1296, for they presuppose not only the Torriti mosaics at Santa Maria Maggiore, but also the early Giotto frescoes in the upper church of Assisi’s San Francesco. They are surprisingly modern in style, far more so than Torriti’s mosaics. In them the principles of the new painting introduced by Giotto were translated into mosaic for the first time.

As earlier, around 1300 the work of Roman mosaicists extended to exteriors as well. At Santa Maria Maggiore mosaics were not only added to the interior but also to the

outside of the apse and the facade. Only the facade mosaics, commissioned by the cardinals Jacopo and Pietro Colonna, have survived. They are now hidden behind the eighteenthcentury narthex, and bear the signature of Filippo Rusuti.

In their upper section they picture Christ enthroned between angels and saints (figure 47), but in the lower one are four scenes recounting the story of the basilica’s founding, including the Miracle of the Snow and the patrician John revealing his dream to Pope Liberius. No other works by Rusuti have survived. The only documents relating to him indicate that between 1304 and 1317 he repeatedly sojourned in France, where he worked in the service of the king. It is not easy to determine the extent of his collaboration on the facade mosaics at Santa Maria Maggiore, since they have not only been reworked to a great extent but are also inconsistent in style. Those in the upper register, to which Rusuti applied his signature, are still greatly indebted to the apse mosaic by Torriti, and accordingly must have been created before 1297, at which point the Colonnas fell out of grace with Pope Boniface VIII. The scenes relating to the basilica’s founding in the lower register, on

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Introduction���� 43

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43 Pope Innocent III. Fragment of the apse mosaic from the old St. Peter’s.

Museo di Roma, Rome

44 Saint Peter. Fragment from the former apse mosaic, San Paolo fuori le Mura, Rome

exile of the popes in Avignon. The cardinal, pictured in the bottom right corner, paid the sizable sum of 2,200 gold florins for the work. The date of its completion is not recorded.

Since the seventeenth century, scholars have dated it variously between 1298 and 1320, and the later year appears to be more correct. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the St. Peter’s mosaic was held to be Giotto’s most important work. Its affecting depiction of a variety of emotions in the faces and gestures of the frightened apostles, who are either fighting the wind or staring transfixed at Peter’s rescue, was particularly admired. Even more than two centuries later, the humanist and art theorist Leon Battista Alberti singled out the Navicella as a supreme example of the narrative picture thanks to its vitality and its convincing gestures and facial expressions. Later critics did not wholly agree, pointing out that the Christ figure, facing out toward the viewer, seems removed from the action. As in earlier mosaics, it is his majesty that is emphasized, and as a result the picture as a whole takes on a timeless, sacral quality that transcends mere description.

The Navicella’s prominent location surely helped to make it so famous. In the late fourteenth century Filippo Villani implied that Giotto chose the spot deliberately as a showcase for himself and his art, one that would be seen by pilgrims streaming to St. Peter’s from all over the world. Unfortunately, the surviving fragments pro-

the other hand, presuppose the frescoes on the Francis legend in San Francesco in Assisi. Thus they were probably only created after 1306, when the Colonnas were rehabilitated by Pope Clement V. It is by no means certain that Rusuti was involved in them as well.

Another exterior mosaic was the most famous of all the mosaics produced in Rome around 1300, the so-called Navicella (“Little Ship”) that Giotto created on commission from Cardinal Jacopo Stefaneschi. Roughly thirty-one feet tall and forty-four feet wide (9.4 by 13.4 m), the mosaic was placed on the west wall of the oratory of Santa Maria in Turri, in the atrium of the old St. Peter’s. Like a huge tableau, it confronted worshipers as they left the basilica.

Unlike earlier mosaics because of its picturelike frame, it looked like an oversize panel painting on display in a gallery.

It survives today in the form of a mutilated Baroque reproduction in the basilica’s vestibule. Only two fragments from the original, heavily reworked heads of angels that were part of the framing decor, are preserved (figures 49, 50). Its original appearance is nevertheless documented in numerous copies, the most reliable being the so-called Berretta facsimile (figure 48). It pictured the apostles’ ship in distress at sea, and Christ rescuing Peter from the waves (Matthew 14:24–32)—symbolizing the church’s distress owing to the 44 ������������ Introduction

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vide little sense of the work’s artistic stature. But they do suggest that the innovations Giotto brought to painting, the wealth of nuances with which he managed to realistically picture material objects in space, could be translated into the medium of mosaic in only a limited way. This may explain in part why wall painting came to be increasingly favored over mosaics after his time. Mosaics were not altogether abandoned, to be sure, as witness the many later ones in San Marco in Venice, on the facade of Orvieto’s cathedral, in St. Peter’s in Rome, and elsewhere. Yet after Giotto their heyday was past, a circumstance to which Giotto himself doubtless contributed with his introduction of a more realistic concept of the figure. Still, even in the late fifteenth century it appears that Giotto was mainly remembered as the creator of the Roman mosaic. A charming indication of this is the artist’s epitaph in Florence’s cathedral (figure 51), executed by Benedetto da Maiano in 1489/90. In it with painstaking care Giotto is placing the last tiny tesserae in a mosaic.

45 Christ giving benediction.

Vaulting mosaic, Sancta Sanctorum, Rome

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R a v enna

Mausoleum of Galla Placidia Second qua r ter of the fifth century

A

ndreas Agnellus, who composed a set of biographies of Ravenna’s bishops around 840, is one of our most important sources for the history of Ravenna and its structures in late antiquity. From him we learn that one of the donations to her residence made by Empress Galla Placidia (circa 390–450) was the church of Santa Croce, together with its rich decoration. To the west of that cruciform structure, which no longer survives in its original form, stood a narthex, abutted on the south by a brick building known as the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. It is not altogether certain that this building was actually intended to serve as the empress’s mausoleum—or that it ultimately did—but it is probable. By Agnellus’s time the building already belonged to the monastery of Saints Nazarius and Celsus, and he reports that “many people” insisted that Galla Placidia’s tomb lay in front of the altar. Centuries later, in a treatise composed in 1317 by the blessed Rainaldo Concoreggio, archbishop of Ravenna from 1303 to 1321, it is treated as established fact that the empress was indeed entombed in the chapel. Galla Placidia died in Rome, and was possibly buried there as well, but this does not preclude the possibility that she had built the chapel next to Santa Croce as a mausoleum for herself.

The building is a cross-shaped structure of relatively modest dimensions (plate 31), whose north arm, once connected to the narthex of Santa Croce, is somewhat longer than the rest. Inside, its crossing is topped by a cupola with pendentives. The ground plan and the marble pinecones that crown the crossing tower are indications that the structure was indeed meant to be used as a tomb chapel. The pictorial program of its mosaic decoration suggests as much as well. The three sarcophagi that stand inside provide no reliable clues in this regard; it is a matter of debate just when they were made and where they were originally meant to be placed.

The exterior walls originally rose some four and a half feet (1.37 m) higher above ground level than today, and were probably stuccoed (Deichmann 1969). All in all, the exterior is most unimpressive, even though the walls are nicely structured with pilaster strips. This simple exterior stands in stark contrast to the color and splendor of the interior—a feature common to many Early Christian sacred structures.

The exquisite mosaics that adorn the upper portions of the walls and the vaulting are the oldest mosaic decoration of a sacred space from the Early Christian period to have sur-

vived in its complete form. The well-preserved mosaics were largely restored and repaired in the nineteenth century, after several missing sections noted by Ciampini (1690) had been replaced with painting in the eighteenth century.

One enters the structure from the north side. In the lunette above the entrance Christ is pictured as the Good Shepherd (John 10:1–18; plate 33). The placement of this image was suggested by the Lord’s claim, reported in the gospel of John, “I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved” (John 10:9), a text that could also appear above church doors as an inscription, as it did later above the main portal of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. As far as it is now possible to tell, its first pictorial formulation is this one in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. The type of the depiction was apparently borrowed from ancient images of Orpheus (Deichmann 1974; Bisconti 1988). Dressed in a gold tunic and purple pallium, Christ sits on a stepped boulder surrounded by six sheep, all of which turn toward him.

One of them has trustingly approached, and with his right hand Christ strokes its chin while holding a gold cross as a staff in his left. Given Christ’s splendid garments, his magisterial pose, and his gold cross presented like a trophy, it is immediately apparent that this is no ordinary shepherd portrait. Despite the charming intimacy with the sheep, and contrary to all earlier depictions of the subject, the inclusion of the attributes of kingship infuse the bucolic motif of the Good Shepherd with a sense of courtly ceremony. This is altogether consistent with the image of Christ in general as it had evolved since the late fourth century. A gold tunic was already one of his attributes in the mosaic of the promulgation of the law in Santa Costanza (plate 9) and in the apse mosaic at Santa Pudenziana (figure 5). In the Ravenna mosaic—as in the apse mosaic at Santa Pudenziana—there is a liberal use of gold tesserae in other parts of the composition; they lend a shimmering radiance to the rocks and the plants springing up between them, and create a light-filled atmosphere. A balanced interplay of light and color contributes greatly to the illusion of space. Of importance in this regard are the gradations of blue in the background and the reflection of light on the tops of the jagged rocks that serve as a threshold leading into the landscape at the bottom edge.

The lunette opposite the entrance presents a picture of Saint Lawrence (plate 34), whose cult was very widespread in the early church, and to whom the chapel was possibly

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dedicated. He also wears a tunic and pallium. Additional attributes are the gold cross in his right hand that rests on his shoulder and an open book in his left, not to mention the gridiron beneath the window, the instrument of the saint’s martyrdom, complete with a blazing fire. To the left is an open scrinium, or bookcase, holding the four gospels, an indication of the deacon’s duties in his service to the church, which would later justify his becoming the patron saint of librarians. In the lost mosaics on the inner facade of Rome’s Santa Maria Maggiore, presumably created a few years before, martyrs had already been pictured with the instruments of their torture. But that composition included several saints—possibly in attendance on a Madonna and Child. What distinguishes the Lawrence lunette in Ravenna is precisely the fact that it is the earliest surviving picture of a single saint. It is significant that it does not portray him in a static pose and a strictly frontal view, the iconlike type of portrait imported from Byzantium that would become common from the sixth century on. Instead, his figure is filled with movement as he rushes toward the instrument of his martyrdom with seeming alacrity, the hems of his garments billowing upward. We are not shown the subsequent torture or the martyr in a state of ecstasy, but rather his inner preparedness for his ordeal. The fact that he faces the viewer directly lends the picture the intended quality of an appeal.

The main motif in the lunettes of the chapel’s west and east arms (plate 32) is a pair of deer approaching a spring (Psalms 42:2–3). This subject had already appeared as a secondary theme in the cupola mosaic in the Baptistery in Naples, and it frequently reappears as such up into the late thirteenth century and Jacopo Torriti’s apse mosaics at San Giovanni in Laterano (figure 46) and Santa Maria Maggiore (plate 188). Acanthus vines springing up near the pool of water uncurl across the entire surface of the wall. In these secondary lunettes the palette is clearly reduced, essentially limited to dark blue, green, light blue, and brown. In the barrel vaults above the side lunettes gold grapevines fan out from acanthus calyxes in front of a dark blue ground. At the crest of each of the vaults they encircle the Christogram; on the sides, figures of prophets. Unlike the grapevines in Santa Costanza in Rome (plate 3), these are unquestionably meant to be understood as a Christian symbol (John 15:1–18).

In the lunettes of the crossing (plates 31, 32) are pairs of

apostles, only two of which can be identified, as Peter and Paul, who appear together on the east wall. On the ground between them stand cantharoi and basins to which doves have come to drink, an ancient motif employed in Christian art to symbolize the thirsting soul that finds refreshment in God. Since this motif is mainly found in the sepulchral realm—as on the Ravenna sarcophagi as well—its use here can be seen as a further indication that the structure was intended to function as a mausoleum. The apostles stand on cube-shaped platforms set off against the dark blue ground in a light green but tied to it in terms of color by the blue shadows cast by the figures and the vessels between them.

A sumptuously decorated shell-shaped calotte forms the top of the stage on which the apostles appear. The figures’ gazes and salutory gestures are directed beyond this shelllike ceiling, however; the object of their respectful gaze is the gold cross that appears at the top of the cupola in the center of a sky filled with stars—567 in all—arranged in concentric circles (plate 36). The cross’s longer eastern arm suggests that it has risen into the starry sky from the east. At a suitable distance the cross is accompanied by the symbols of the evangelists (Apocalypse 4:6–8) on the pendentives.

The way the apostles direct the viewer’s gaze upward from the middle level of the space to the upper one and its central motif is without parallel in other mosaics of this period.

Here the cross is to be understood as the “sign of the Son of man” (Matthew 24:30), the appearance of which will precede Christ’s return at the end of days. This eschatological significance of the pictorial program culminating in the cupola mosaic is yet another indication that the structure was erected as a mausoleum.

A number of the picture motifs in the mausoleum’s crossing, as well as their arrangement, have precedents in the vaulting mosaic in the Baptistery in Naples, from around 400 (figs. 24–26). There, however, it is Christ’s monogram that occupies the center of the cupola. And in that program there is no direct connection between that culminating motif and the apostles offering gold crowns; the level between them is filled with such scenes as the miracle of the wine at Cana and the traditio legis. In addition, the Naples mosaics exhibit a different style. There the threedimensionality of both figures and symbols is strongly emphasized. They are rendered with an almost sculptural physicality, whereas the Ravenna mosaics reveal a greater Ravenna: Mausoleum of Galla Placidia 109

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focus on space and color, on atmospheric and decorative effects. In the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia the latter are evident in the considerable proportion of colorful, purely ornamental elements of great variety. Vines of various kinds alternate with twisted bands rendered in perspective and meander friezes, strictly geometric shapes with threedimensional ornaments, and foliate friezes with festoons of fruits. In the two barrel vaults in front of the Christ and Lawrence lunettes, floral designs suggestive of frost patterns glow against a blue ground, directly abutting a lightcolored meander frieze. Three-dimensional and flat designs, representational and abstract forms, and illusionistic and ornamental effects directly confront each other. The overall program is essentially characterized by a deliberate multiplicity of forms and colors. An abundance of highly varied ornamental elements had already been typical of fourthcentury mosaics, as seen in the example of Santa Costanza (plates 1–10). Over the course of the fifth century such decorative variety tended to be reduced. In this respect the mosaic decor in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia represents a culmination. Ornaments take up nearly as much space as the pictures, suggesting that the ensemble’s creators were just as concerned with producing an effect of sumptuous splendor as with communicating a doctrinal message.

The picture spaces in the north and south ground-floor lunettes and those of the crossing are of limited depth, but very clearly articulated. With the exception of the lunette on the entry wall, the picture stages and grounds are set

apart by color alone, yet harmonized by subtle gradations of colors and by the inclusion of shadows, also carefully graduated in tone. Particularly successful in this regard is the play of shadows cast against the light blue ground in the Lawrence lunette by the bookcase and the flickering flames beneath the gridiron (plate 34). The gradations of white, light blues, and grays in the garments of Lawrence and the apostles are exquisitely nuanced, their convex swellings distinctly emphasized with white highlights. The taut rendering of folds with straight lines complements the effect of radiance that this gives the figures. Together they make the surfaces of the figures appear to have been polished. The bodies are more firmly bound up in their garments than before, their volumes more compact; the play of the limbs beneath their clothing is more limited. In these respects they differ not only from the mosaics in the Naples Baptistery (figs. 24, 25) and those in Rome’s Santa Pudenziana (figure 5) and Santa Maria Maggiore (plates 11–23), but also from the mosaic of the Good Shepherd in the lunette above the entrance (plate 33). In the way the space is structured in that work and in the design of its figure, it is more clearly indebted to the Roman stylistic tradition, while in the mausoleum’s other figural panels a new direction is evident, one possibly originating from Milan or Constantinople. As is clear from the variety of stylistic features singled out in the literature and the precedents cited to explain them, it is impossible to make any conclusive judgment in this regard owing to the absence of sufficient material for comparison.

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Plate 31 Interior view from the north

Plate 32 Saints Peter and Paul; deer at a spring. East wall of the crossing and east arm

Plate 33 Christ as the Good Shepherd. North lunette

Plate 34 Saint Lawrence.

South lunette

Plate 35 Lion of Saint Mark.

Crossing, vaulting pendentive

Plate 36 Vaulting. Crossing cupola

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companion to Abbeville’s highly praised Italian Frescoes ­series, this magnificently illustrated volume presents the most important mosaic cycles created in Italy between AD 300 and 1300. In these centuries, mosaics—executed principally on walls and vaults— were the most important medium for monumental religious art, just as frescoes would be in the Renaissance. In fact, the mosaics that adorn the fourth- to sixth-century churches, baptisteries, and mausoleums of Rome, Ravenna, and to a lesser extent Naples and Milan are among the first ­examples of Christian pictorial art on a monumental scale.

These early works were still indebted to classical conventions, but as the Middle Ages progressed, Italian mosaics came to more clearly reflect a Christian, transcendentalist worldview. Usually their style also displayed a strong Byzantine influence; indeed, some of them were actually carried out by Byzantine craftsmen. Although most of the artists who designed these beautiful mosaics remain anonymous, we do know the names of some of those who contributed to the final flowering of the art in the thirteenth century—including Cimabue, Cavallini, and Giotto, the most celebrated painters of the time.

Italian Mosaics opens with a concise history of the mosaicists’s art in the millennium under consideration, tying together the strands of style, iconography, technique, and cultural context. The central part of the book examines nineteen celebrated mosaic cycles in detail, including those of the Mausoleum of Galla Placida in Ravenna (425–50), the oldest Early Christian monument whose decoration has survived intact; the Basilica of Santa Prassede in Rome, whose mosaics, commissioned

by Pope Paschal I (817–824), have recently been restored to their original splendor; and the Cathedral of Monreale near Palermo, whose elaborate decorative program includes the most extensive mosaic décor in Italy, executed in only a decade (1180–90). Each cycle is introduced by a descriptive and interpretive essay and then illustrated in its entirety in a series of full- and double-page photographs, most of them specially commissioned for this ­volume.

These stunning illustrations, which number some three hundred in all, succeed in capturing the unique aesthetic qualities that mosaics have always been prized for. Panoramic shots show how the mosaics respond to the natural light of their setting, forming a weightless expanse of radiant, glittering color that cannot be replicated in any other medium, while numerous details reveal the individual tesserae—minute squares of stone and glass—from which these ethereal visions were painstakingly crafted. With these splendid photographs and its authoritative text, Italian Mosaics—the first survey of its subject to be published— will stand alongside the Italian Frescoes series as an essential addition to the literature on art history. about the author J o ac h i m P o e s c h ke , a professor of art history at the University of Münster, is the author of numerous books on medieval and Ren­ aissance Italian art, including Italian Frescoes: The Age of Giotto, 1280– 1400 (Abbeville).

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